Plankton Wat – Corridors

Feral Child Recordings

Although better known, in certain circles at least, for this pivotal role in Portland, Oregon’s lysergic-rock titans Eternal Tapestry, Dewey Mahood has forged a compelling pseudonym-cloaked solo path since 2002 as Plankton Wat (a jokey portmanteau moniker fused in honour of revered kosmische producer Conny Plank and Minutemen bass legend Mike Watt), across a raft of DIY and label-enabled releases.

On his last official outing, 2021’s still-tremendous Thrill Jockey-curated Future Times LP, Mahood significantly broadened the panoramas for the project to incorporate subtle wordless ruminations on eco-minded geopolitics, with his scholarly psych-prog palette expanded with colourings of In A Silent Way-era Miles Davis, Brian Eno’s Ambient series, shamanic funk and sultry soul.

Newly-arriving on Dom Martin’s kaleidoscopic Crouch End kitchen enterprise, Feral Child Recordings, the more self-confining Corridors follows a narrower but still enthralling route.

Motivated by musical memories stirred on recent touring in the UK as one-half of the rhythm section for Ripley Johnson’s Rose City Band, Mahood has deep-mined the dark dream-like seams of fledgling years Factory Records, early Cherry Red, ‘80s 4AD and similar historical sources to fuel his latest home studio exploration.

Skilfully smearing together layers of guitars, bass, synths, piano and drum machines, with guest input from returning long-term accomplice Dustin Dybvig, in a four-track recording set-up, Corridors is rudimental as well as otherworldly in its rendering.

Consequently, amongst the main tranche of the gathered vocal-free essays, Mahood imagines Joy Division submerged in watery languor (“Arcadia”); unearthed Durutti Column demos cut with Robin Guthrie’s effects pedals (“Forgotten Dream” and “Glacial Corridor”); This Mortal Coil foggily saluting Maurice Deebank’s six-string filigrees on the first two Felt albums (“Natural Bridges”, “Deserted Lands” and “Unspoken Promise”); and a lost instrumental outtake from The Moon And The Melodies (“Pacific Drift”).

There is still space, of course, for Mahood’s embedded and unabashed Pink Floyd-meets-Popol Vuh proclivities, as expressed via the warm sonic noodles stretched across “Solar Storm” and “Svalbard”, which could have been absorbed into Eternal Tapestry’s A World Out Of Time with welcome ease.

Working satisfyingly as a standalone statement and as another key piece in the sprawling Plankton Wat mosaic, Corridors is a commendably cohesive curio all told.

-Adrian-